by Frank Schnittger
Sat Mar 27th, 2021 at 10:42:55 AM EST
The vaccine roll-out has been a bit of a disaster for the EU, so obviously somebody has to be at fault. In the infantile world of much modern politics it's all about finding a scapegoat and it looks like the Irish government has decided that Ursula Von Der Leyen would be a good candidate for the role. Former UK Conservative party Leader and Brexiteer, William Hague, has described Ursula von der Leyen's time as president of the European Commission as "among the most dismal in its existence" and he clearly has the EU's best interests at heart. I have drafted a letter to the editor as follows:
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Mar 21st, 2021 at 09:45:16 PM EST
In 2019 the Irish Government announced the formation of a "stakeholder committee" to develop Ireland's Agri-Food Strategy to 2030. This included the great and the good in the agribusiness community plus some public service agency heads and representatives of the Farmers and Fishermen's associations. Representatives of the "environmental and food safety perspectives" were only appointed afterwards and their contributions studiously ignored to the point where the environmental representative felt obliged to resign. Hence my letter to the editor below:
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Mar 11th, 2021 at 01:31:14 AM EST
The British Empire and Ireland
A chara, - Professor Nigel Biggar writes: "If colonialists can `other' the natives, essentialising them into contemptible stereotypes, nationalists, too, can `other' the imperialists." This is a classic case of "both sides do it" as if there is an equivalence between the actions of the oppressor and the oppressed. The slave is not equally guilty of slavery as the slaver, even if he has reconciled himself to his fate, and ends up working for his enslaver.
The Irish literary and language revival was an act of opposition to colonial rule, not an expression of it, as Prof Biggar seems to imply. The fact that there were many outstanding individuals, some earning their living as servants of the empire, who did not subscribe to the "imperial project" and indeed ameliorated its worst effects, does not alter the fact that the main thrust of UK government imperial policy was one of domination and suppression.
History is complex, with many interwoven narratives, but to try to obscure its main thrust with anecdotes about those few people who swam against the tide is hardly an "ethical remembering". It demeans the achievements of those who stood out against the worst aspects of imperialism and uses them to justify or mitigate the acts of its worst perpetrators. Far from constituting a balanced historiography, it is a shocking washing of hands by a professor of moral theology. - Is mise,
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Mar 6th, 2021 at 02:08:59 AM EST
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The UK government had already threatened to break international law with its Internal Markets Bill and was dissuaded from doing so only by the signing of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
Now the UK government is trying the same trick with the Northern Ireland Protocol - announcing unilateral changes without going through the joint committee set up to oversee its operation. Apparently Lord Frost, ex UK Brexit negotiator and recently promoted to Boris Johnson's cabinet, has decided that the way to deal with the EU is to play hardball, and the EU will fold. That worked so well for him last time!
Paul Johnson, UK ambassador to Ireland, had a letter published in the Irish Times yesterday arguing that the UK approach was perfectly legal and indeed was required to deal with the "problems being experienced in the everyday life of communities" and to "ensure cross-community support."
The response of Irish Times letter writers has been to laugh him out of court, although I have tried to address the argument point by point in my letter published today:
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Mar 18th, 2021 at 08:16:58 PM EST
Annualised GDP growth per Quarter
Despite Brexit and the Pandemic, the Irish economy is predicted to record the highest growth rate in the world in 2020 thanks to a heavy concentration of pharma and medtech companies in the economy. Current projections for 2021 and 2022 are for continued growth in the 3-4% range. Gross GDP figures are, of course, hugely inflated by the activities of global corporations in the economy, but these % growth rates are on a like for like basis.
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Feb 23rd, 2021 at 11:24:58 AM EST
"Those whom the gods wish to destroy...they first make mad" is an apt description of N. Ireland unionists theses days. David Trimble, Arlene Foster and a rake of DUP luminaries are going all out to try and bring down the N. Ireland protocol - having welcomed it when Boris first announced his deal last year. Legal actions are threatened together with dark mutterings of loyalist unrest. It doesn't seem to have dawned on them that it is part of an international treaty which cannot be unilaterally abrogated, although, sadly, the European Commission may have given them that idea. The Irish Times has published my letter on the subject... (fourth letter down and see below).
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Feb 20th, 2021 at 04:52:24 PM EST
CNN is reporting that the contracts signed by Astra Zeneca with the UK and the EU are essentially the same, and both contain the "best efforts" clause Astra Zeneca has used in an attempt to weasel out of its contractual commitments to the EU. But the real bombshell is that it appears that the UK contract was signed the day after the EU contract, and not 3 months before, as AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot has claimed.
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Feb 19th, 2021 at 02:43:12 PM EST
Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland, is an old time socialist, university lecturer, sociologist, and poet from the left wing of the Labour Party. The role of President is largely a ceremonial one but he is following a relatively distinguished line of succession from Mary Robinson to Mary McAleese in taking an activist approach to the office and promoting gender and civil liberty issues. What these Presidents have in common is a rejection of simplistic nationalist myths and an abhorrence of violence for achieving political goals.
He has recently written an an op-ed in the Guardian in which he invited UK readers to share in his project of re-examining the myths of nationalism and imperialism and how they still shape our lives today. His piece provoked a vituperative anti-Irish response in the Daily Telegraph "The Irish president has a cheek lecturing Britons about history" and a chiding by Irish Times Columnist, Finn McRedmond, "Are we really entitled to lecture Britain about remembering?".
[Update]:The Irish Times has published an edited version of my letter in response under the headline Lecturing Britain about remembering?
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Feb 14th, 2021 at 02:49:33 PM EST
The Constitution Unit at University College London has set up a working group comprised of 12 experts based at universities in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Great Britain, and the United States, to examine how any future referendums on whether Northern Ireland should stay in the United Kingdom or become part of a united Ireland would best be designed and conducted. They have issued an interim report and executive summary here.
Their starting point is the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement of 1998 which states that:
it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement is light on the detail of how such referendums should be organised, and the interim report seeks to explore the options in this regard. I have submitted a response to the interim report as follows:
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Feb 5th, 2021 at 02:09:04 AM EST
Brexiteers generally have been puzzled and annoyed at Ireland's failure to follow the UK out of the EU. They have been especially irritated at the problems the "Irish border" has created for them getting the clean break from the EU that they wanted. That problem would have disappeared had Ireland, too, decided to leave the EU. Nigel Farage even came to Ireland to campaign for "Irexit", and his ex-communications director, Hermann Kelly, got all of 2,441 votes or 0.67% of the total in the Dublin Constituency in the European Elections in 2019.
But it isn't just Brexiteers who find Ireland's apparent Europhilia irritating and annoying. Newton Emerson, a Northern Ireland unionist and Irish Times columnist who voted Remain has just written a column entitled Unionism to squander opportunity presented by EU blunder in which he conflates Irish Europhilia with Anglophobia. Apparently it is inconceivable for even a moderate unionist to think of Irish people who support EU membership as doing so for any reason other than hatred of Britain.
Naturally I felt compelled to set him straight in a letter published in the Irish Times:(fourth letter down)
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Feb 4th, 2021 at 01:14:00 AM EST
The Irish Times: EU and vaccination
A chara,- A sub-committee of the European Commission makes a rushed decision in the middle of a crisis to try and ensure that vaccines are not being exported out of the EU in breach of the pharmaceutical companies' contractual commitments to its own vaccination programme.
When the serious implications of one aspect of the proposal are pointed out to it, it admits its mistake, and changes the decision. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, takes full responsibility for the mistake and commits to ensuring it doesn't happen again. What more can we expect of our leaders? If only it were always so.
Healthcare provision is generally a national competency within the EU, and this is the first time the commission has taken the lead role in EU-wide vaccine procurement. In doing so it has helped us to avoid the kind of toxic vaccine nationalism which has broken out between the UK and the EU also breaking out between member states of the EU.
If that had happened, you can be sure that Ireland, as a smaller member state without our own vaccine manufacturing capability, would have been paying top-dollar prices at the back of the queue.
We have all learned a lot about managing a pandemic, and still have a lot to learn. Making mistakes is part of that process. It's how you recover from a mistake that matters. - Yours, etc,
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Jan 30th, 2021 at 02:05:42 PM EST
The already difficult relations between the UK and EU threatened to turn poisonous when the European Commission tried to invoke Article 16 of the Ireland Protocol of the Withdrawal Agreement to prevent EU made vaccines being exported to the UK through the "backdoor" of Northern Ireland.
This went against years of EU and Irish diplomacy which has sought to prevent the emergence of a hard land border within Ireland. How the Commission could have made such a decision without consulting the Irish government on its political ramifications is beyond belief.
The now aborted move to invoke Article 16 exposes the degree of anger and vulnerability felt within the Commission at it being seen to be responsible for the EU's slower vaccination program than those in the UK, Israel and US, in particular. But as often the case in these crises, the real story is a lot more complex and nuanced.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Jan 24th, 2021 at 08:31:50 PM EST
My letter (minus the last sentence) has also been published by the Irish Times here.
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Jan 14th, 2021 at 06:03:10 PM EST
Ever since the Brexit referendum in the UK, and particularly since the signing of the Withdrawal Agreement, Northern Ireland Protocol, and the UK EU Trade and Security agreement, there has been a plethora of writing and comment on the prospects for an independent Scotland and a united Ireland. This is based partly on the fact that both Scotland and N. Ireland voted to remain in the EU, and partly due to an antipathy to the insurgence of English nationalism, which is largely what drove the Brexit project and threatens to drive the component entities of the "United Kingdom" ever further apart.
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Jan 8th, 2021 at 06:10:45 PM EST
Trump Says He Could 'Shoot Somebody' and Still Maintain Support
Donald Trump said Saturday that his supporters are so loyal that he would not lose backers even if he were to shoot someone in the middle of downtown Manhattan.
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?" Trump said at a rally in Sioux Center, Iowa as the audience laughed. "It's, like, incredible."
Trump's whole Presidency can be seen as a political experiment to see how far he could push the boat out on political extremism and still retain political support. Indeed his approval ratings have rarely slipped below 40%, and currently stand at 42.4%. Not enough to secure re-election, obviously, but enough to make it a contest. It is worth noting that his 74 Million votes in the General Election is the highest ever attained by any presidential candidate bar Joe Biden, who obtained 81 Million votes.
So what does this say about the state of the US polity...
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Jan 7th, 2021 at 12:07:33 PM EST
Having generally done a relatively good job of containing the pandemic (Ireland currently ranks 62nd. for cases/million, and 47th. for deaths/million in the world), at least compared to our nearest neighbours, the government seems to have lost its way recently. In its determination to offer some respite to the hospitality industry and allow people some semblance of a normal Christmas, it has allowed the pandemic to get out of control to a far greater extent than ever before:
Partly, this may be due to the upsurge in the much more infectious English variant of the virus, but there is no doubt the level of social mixing got out of control over the holiday season resulting in a renewed lockdown and closure of schools.
But the even more serious issue is that the vaccination programme has gotten off to a very slow start and shows no sign of accelerating rapidly any time soon. The government and its public health advisers have been very good at lecturing the public on how to behave, less good at organising what should be their primary responsibility - an efficient vaccination roll-out programme. Hence my letter to the editor published today:
by Frank Schnittger
Wed Jan 6th, 2021 at 07:56:03 PM EST
Following an incendiary speech by President Trump crowds of protestors marched from his protest meeting and breeched the security lines and stormed the Capital Buildings in Washington DC. The Senate and Congress were in joint session to certify the Presidential election results and had just heard an objection from Senator Cruz to certifying the result. Senators and Congressmen were evacuated through various tunnels carrying gas masks and Vice President Pence and others were evacuated to a safe place.
More to follow as events unfold...
by Frank Schnittger
Wed Jan 6th, 2021 at 02:13:31 PM EST
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As a long haired student radical in the early 1970's I did a spot of hitch-hiking around the eastern USA following a summer working making motel beds and selling hot-dogs on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey and working construction in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
I ventured as far as N. Carolina but was warned not to go further south as the southern states of South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and especially Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia where injun country as far as long haired students were concerned. You could get beaten up or worse.
I remember being amazed at a military High School in Charlotte where young teenagers were being drilled to within an inch of their lives in the merciless heat wearing 19th. century buttoned up military uniforms that made no concessions to comfort, utility, or the heat. This was no place for anarchist idealists.
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Jan 2nd, 2021 at 06:17:13 PM EST
The Cummings/Wakefield family pile: Chillingham Castle and Gardens, Northumberland. Just what establishment is Dominic Cummings trying to overthrow, or to re-establish?
One of the more puzzling aspects of the Trade and cooperation agreement just signed by the UK and EU is that its focus is almost exclusively on trade in goods, an area where the EU (excluding Ireland) enjoys a massive trade surplus with the UK. Services make up 80% of the UK economy and the City of London has been the financial powerhouse of the EU. Yet curiously the trade deal does not provide for free access for UK service companies to EU markets, does not provide for mutual recognition of professional qualifications (again, excluding Ireland), and even the Erasmus student exchange programme no longer applies to the UK.
